Snoop Dogg on hand to greet customers at grand opening

In one corner, rapper Snoop Dogg sat on a makeshift throne taking pictures with hundreds of fans. A few dozen feet away, young women in high heels and white T-shirts educated customers about more than 100 medical marijuana products.

The grand opening of Jardin Cannabis Dispensary on Friday afternoon was truly a Las Vegas-style affair.

“We wanted to build a premium dispensary with a beautiful staff,” said Jardin owner Adam Denmark Cohen, who moved to the valley two years ago to stake his claim in Nevada’s expanding cannabis industry. “It’s a labor of love.”

Outside, a DJ spun hip-hop music while at least three food trucks and several more vendors stood waiting for customers to leave the dispensary. Cohen, originally from Pittsburgh, said he spent the past 12 months preparing for Friday’s opening. An attorney by trade, he worked for three years in marijuana cultivation in Florida and Colorado before making the move to open his own facility in Las Vegas.

Cohen said over 25 marijuana industry employees will call Jardin, 2900 E. Desert Inn Road, their new workplace, narrowed down from over 4,000 applicants. The dispensary will carry nearly 25 strains of marijuana flower, including “Segerblom Haze,” named after state Sen. Tick Segerblom, as part of more than 100 total products that include edibles, topicals, concentrates and extracts.

Jardin is the 45th licensed medical marijuana facility to open in Clark County since July 2015. Cohen hopes his dispensary serves as both a neighborhood staple and an attractive destination for tourists.

“Other dispensaries are nice, but we felt no one has really embraced the Las Vegas feel and lifestyle,” he said. “We wanted some sexiness, some energy here, just to have a good interaction.”

With Ballot Question 2 passing in Tuesday’s election, allowing for adults age 21 and over to purchase and consume up to 1 ounce of marijuana or one-eighth of an ounce of marijuana concentrates, like wax, carbon dioxide oil and shatter, for recreational use, Cohen, like many Las Vegas dispensary owners, said he hopes to one day expand.

But even without recreational customers at first, the Jardin owner called Las Vegas’ current medical marijuana industry “robust and concentrated.”

Snoop Dogg, whose real name is Cordozar Calvin Broadus, last year launched his own line of cannabis product strains, edibles and concentrates under the brand name “Leafs by Snoop.” The rapper has long been a marijuana advocate and tweeted Tuesday in celebration of recreational cannabis being legalized in his home state of California.

Broadus was not made available for interviews on Friday, but when asked why now was the right time for recreational marijuana in Nevada, the rapper’s response was simple.